With the rising price and increasing shortages of fossil fuels, there has been an increasing interest in the use of alternative fuel sources for heating houses and buildings. One of these alternative sources is firewood burned in a fireplace that has been modified to extract the heat from the burning wood and distribute that heat throughout the building in a more efficient manner than conventional fireplaces.
It is known that in a conventional fireplace the majority of the heat produced by the burning of the wood therein goes up the chimney and is lost. Previous attempts have been made to extract heat from the hot combustion gases before they escape from the chimney. Until now none of the previously known systems have been very successful.
Another alternative source of energy is so called solar power. Various types of solar panels are known in the art. However, heretofore a heating system utilizing a solar panel for efficiently and directly heating the air in a building, such as a residential home, has not been known.